The Impact of Auditory Embodiment on Animated Character Design

Advances in speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies recently have contributed to the development of conversational interfaces that incorporate animated characters. These interfaces potentially are well suited for educational software, since they can engage children as active learners and support question asking skills. In the present research, a simulation study was conducted in which twenty-four 7-to-10-year-old children used speech and pen input to converse directly with animated fish as they learned about marine biology. During these interactions, children became highly engaged, asking an average of 152 questions during a 1-hour session. The specific auditory embodiment of animated characters as text-to-speech (TTS) output also had a significant selective impact on children’s engagement in asking science questions. Specifically, children asked +16% more science questions when conversing with an extrovert voice that resembled the speech of a master teacher (e.g., higher volume and pitch, wider pitch range), rather than an introvert voice, although no differential impact was found on social questions. These findings reveal that conversational interfaces can be designed that effectively stimulate children during learning activities, thereby supporting the goals of next-generation educational software.